From the Archives ...

Presented from Issue 105, August 2013Bob is a professional fishing guide and guides for trout and estuary species. Check him out at www.fishwildtasmania.com

There are several things we look for in our early season trout waters. It is still winter and cold, so some of the things to consider are: Altitude as this dictates the water temperature and therefore feeding activity. Food for the fish. Availability of trout food is generally dictated by the quantity and quality of weed beds.

DR James Haddy from IMAS in Launceston is running a King George whiting frame donation research program. It appears that the adult whiting move out of the estuaries to spawn in deeper coastal areas up to 100m deep in April, and although he has sampled over 588 fish so far, he doesn’t have any mature/spawning fish captured in April. This is despite 7 years of sample collection. Information on adult whiting is important to assess the current minimum legal size of whiting in Tasmania. Currently, the smallest mature female recorded in Tasmania measured 37cm in total length with the next smallest individual measuring 40cm TL. What he needs is if anybody catches a whiting (particularly in coastal waters in APRIL) is to donate the fish frame for science. So instead of throwing the fish in the bin or back in the water after its been filleted.

March is a period of happiness and sadness for Tasmanian anglers. Happiness for the anglers that rely on warm currents or warm weather as there is still some of that. Sadness for those anglers that love their daylight savings as March has the days noticeably shorter working to the date in April we play with clocks. Do NOT despair as there is still lots and lots to enjoy angling wise.

Presented from Issue 114, February 2015The Southern Bluefin Tuna scene in Tasmania has always been popular across Australia, but it is really starting to attract some broader attention. This is in some part due to Tasmania’s fishing being far enough away that it does not feature in Australia’s main stream media. Facebook has changed this in a very short space of time. Anglers have linked up and made friend requests across the country and now if someone catches a good fish anywhere in our nation, the nation’s keen anglers know about it. Tasmania has many reasons to find favour with anglers across Australia, so let’s start running through a few.

Presented from Issue 114, February 2015It’s your day off work and you’ve been awaiting its arrival, pondering thoughts of blue-sky days, huge hatches and chubby trout. Reality closes in and as soon as you awake from your slumber, the cold front arrives before the coffee is even brewed. A quick trawl of Internet-weather forecasts worsens your enthusiasm – howling winds, occasional showers and plummeting temperatures. There are still options out there but would you be comfortable? Would you enjoy success? Should you stay at home constantly checking the social media feed to fill the void of your miserable woes? No, you should fish!

Tasmania boasts a diverse trout fishery, as you might know, renown for amazing sight-fishing on shallow lakes and historical mayfly rivers but in between all of this hides some little-known gems, smaller than a river and closer to being defined as a creek. A place where wading is optimistic only due to the lack of water, not its risky depth. These are creeks and rivers on a micro- scale and they are tight enough to tangle great numbers of your flies! These are positively enticing and there are hundreds of kilometres of them winding their way throughout Tasmania - enough for you to fish for the rest of your life, probably.

I like to call them drains, though that term lacks the romance they truly deserve. Decadent drains would be more apt. Technically, some are given the name ‘river’ or ‘creek’ but some of these allocations are open to interpretation! Whatever they are called, they allegedly hold water and if they have water, there’s a good chance they have trout.

Today thought I would give the small tannin water stream another go today as I was interested to see how it would fish seeing it's been a week since we had some decent rain. I was fairly late heading off this morning due to severe lower back pain and couldn't do much until the pain killers kicked in. I didn't arrive at the stream until 11:15 am only to find the water level had dropped by around five inches (125 mms) to what it was on my last visit here. I knew then I was in for a tough couple of hours here today with low water and full sun on it as well. It's nothing like my last trip when the water was like black coffee, the water was now a light tannin colour and I could see the river bottom quite easy now.

The tenth annual PIRTEK Fishing Challenge, which attracted almost 9000 participants, has been recognised as the world’s biggest competition for anglers.

With entrants from every Australian state and territory, the event also raised funds and awareness for Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia and the Peter Duncan Neurosciences Research Unit.

Australia’s unique landscape was subject to an equally varied range of weather conditions for this year’s Challenge, which produced an endless list of ‘tales’ and interesting images loaded to the event’s official website.

There were some mighty fish caught including a 112cm barramundi in Queensland; Murray Cod over the magic metre mark and some big “Top End” trevally. The southern States produced great results with flathead over 90cm, cracking snapper and a 77cm brown trout from Tasmania.There were 157 individual prize winners across Australia all sharing in the $210,000 prize pool - see below for links to winners.PIRTEK provides $90,000 cash which is divided between 25 mystery length target fish, providing all entrants with the opportunity to win big without necessarily catching the biggest fish.One of the highlights of the challenge is the On The Water prize draw and this year’s major winner was Chris Rossetti from Charlestown, NSW who won the $29,000 boat/motor/trailer package thanks to Stacer and Evinrude.

After having some decent rainfall over the past couple of days I thought I would try one on the small tannin waters above Weegena. I was hoping it had enough flow in it to be good enough to fish, once there I found it was flowing quite nice and it was good enough to have a spin session in it. I was using the gold Aglia today as it always works well in most of the tannin waters I fish. It was a little on the quite side over the first fifty meters or so before I had a small brown take the lure only to see it toss it once it leapt from the river.

Presented from Issue 114, February 2015Jamie Harris, like many anglers from the north west coast, is a fishing nut. And also like many Burnie and NW coasters he has spent many hours driving too and from the east coast chasing game fish. Whilst the nearby west coast has some great fishing it is often wild and unfishable. Bass Strait has some good mako and gummy fishing and Australian salmon and flathead as well. But recently another fish has arrived on the scene that is as good a game fish as there is, great to eat, tough to catch and now it seems readily available – yellowtail kingfish.

Jamie chased these as long ago as ten years, like many anglers, around Elephant Rock off St Helens. Elephant Rock was one of the first areas where kingfish were regularly caught. Clarke Island, below Cape Barren and Flinders Island was also a hot spot, but a lot of boat was needed to get there. So it was a bit elusive but that only hardens the resolve of keen anglers.

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From the Archives ... (last chance)

Fishing on the Wild Side

Mike Fry doesn’t only live on the Wild Side of Tasmania, but also goes fishing in probably the wildest boat ever to troll for trout—certainly in Tasmania. When your mate says ‘What are you doing tomorrow, want to come up the Gordon for the night?’ it would be pretty hard to say anything else except “you bet” and start checking out your tackle box and packing your overnight bag. But if your mate was Troy Grining and he wanted to give his new 52ft, high speed cruiser a run across Macquarie Harbour, test the new onboard dory with a chance of landing a nice Gordon River Brown you would have to feel privileged. I didn’t say anything about getting on my hands and knees and kissing his feet…just having a lend of ya’ but I did feel very appreciative.